IBRAHIM MANTU IS DEAD

Former Deputy Senate President and Plateau Central Senator, Ibrahim Nasiru Mantu, has died of COVID – 19 complications at the age of 74.

Senator Mantu was born in Chanso village, Gindiri District, Mangu Local Government Area of Plateau State on February 16, 1947.

He attended the Gindiri Demonstration Primary School from 1955 – 1961 where be obtained the First School Leaving Certificate.

The deceased worked with the Public Works Department (PWD) Jos, as a Stores Requisition Clerk from 1962 – 1963 before proceeding to the Gindiri Teachers College in 1964. 

On leaving Gindiri in 1967, he joined the Nigerian Tobacco Company Zaria in 1968 as a Quality Checker and later moved to BEAM, a Division of UAC Nigeria as a Kalamazoo Specialist Salesman in 1971.

Mantu studied on his own to obtain O’ level GCE and Diploma in Professional Salesmanship which facilitated his movement to John Holt Ltd. in 1973 as a Trainee-Manager and was later confirmed as a substantive Manager. 

In 1976 Mantu became the General Manager of John Holt Ltd, Maiduguri Venture and in 1977 was promoted and transferred to Lagos as Deputy General Manager, Building Materials Division, John Holt Ltd. 

He resigned mid 1977 to join Plateau State Supply Company Ltd. as its first Commercial Manager.
 Mantu holds a B.A. (Hons.) degree in Political Science from the Washington International University.

He was awarded Honourary Doctorate Degrees of the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, University of Jos, Madonna University, Okija and University of Applied Sciences and Management Port Novo, Benin Republic.

Senator Mantu joined politics in 1978vand was elected Deputy State Chairman of NPN, Plateau State in 1980.

Mantu’s overwhelming popularity saw him contest the National Chairmanship of the N.R.C. in 1990 but was edged out in a surreptitious power play. 

In 1993, Mantu was the Director General of National Republican Convention Presidential Campaign Organisation. 

In 1998, he was elected the National Publicity Secretary of the defunct UNCP and was later elected Senator on the platform of the same party, but the election was truncated by General Abdusalam Abubakar’s regime. 

In 1999, Mantu was re-elected in a fresh contest as Senator representing Plateau Central Senatorial district on the platform of the PDP.